November

Shannon Kessler Dooley - Soprano

Career highlights have included Narcissa in PHILEMON AND BAUCIS with the Spoleto Festival USA; Sister Constance in DIALOGUES OF THE CARMELITES, Almirena in RINALDO, Nannetta in FALSTAFF, Frasquita in CARMEN, Lucia in THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA, and Susanna in LE NOZZE DI FIGARO (student performance) with Pittsburgh Opera; Marzelline in FIDELIO, Zerlina in DON GIOVANNI, Clorinda in LA CENERENTOLA, and Waitress in THE GRAPES OF WRATH with Utah Opera; and Sister Sophia in THE SOUND OF MUSIC with the Ash Lawn Opera Festival. Additional performances have included Fiordiligi in COSÌ FAN TUTTE, Beth in LITTLE WOMEN, Pamina in DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE (educational tour), and Geraldine in A HAND OF BRIDGE with the New England Conservatory; and Gretel in HÄNSEL UND GRETEL with the Tulsa Opera Studio.

Concert highlights have included Susanna in LE NOZZE DI FIGARO with Mendocino Concert Opera; MESSIAH and Grieg's PEER GYNT with the Utah Symphony; Beethoven's NINTH SYMPHONY with the Old Bridge Chamber Orchestra; and the BRAHMS REQUIEM with the Webster University Symphony. Ms. Dooley was the Utah District winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions for 2007, and received an encouragement award at the regional level.

She has participated in the resident artist programs of Pittsburgh Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Utah Opera, Tulsa Opera, and the Ash Lawn Opera Festival. In this upcoming season Ms. Dooley looks forward to joining the Metropolitan Opera roster.

Katherine Drago - Alto

A Chicago native, mezzo-soprano Katherine Drago is currently the Director of Recruitment and Enrollment for the Carnegie Mellon School of Music. Prior to joining the staff at Carnegie Mellon, she was a Resident Artist with Pittsburgh Opera where she completed a three-year residency, appearing in six main stage productions and covering principal roles in another four.

She has also been a featured Apprentice Artist at the Santa Fe Opera over two consecutive summers and made her main stage debut in the role of Zerlina in Don Giovanni, stepping in at the last-minute for the final three performances in 2009. Equally at home on the theater stage, Ms. Drago spent a year on the Broadway National Tour of The Phantom of the Opera and has been featured on an evening of songs by award winning composer Ricky Ian Gordon with the composer at the piano.

Other appearances include Chicago Opera Theater, Santa Fe Symphony, Five Boroughs Music Festival, Asheville Symphony, Cheyenne Symphony, Chatham Baroque, Erie Philharmonic, Berkshire Choral Festival. Performance awards include N.A.T.S. and the Bel Canto Foundation, as well as the Santa Fe Opera and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

Ms. Drago holds degrees from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music and Northwestern University. Outside of Carnegie Mellon University, she has been a guest speaker with the Pacific Northwest Association of College Admission Counselors and Opera America.

Robert Frankenberry - Tenor

Robert Frankenberry leads a multi-faceted career as a tenor, pianist, and conductor. Although he began his vocal career as an actor singing comic roles, he has more recently performed such roles as Don Jose in Carmen, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, and the title roles in The Tales of Hoffmann and Don Carlo. Also active as a vocal recitalist, he performs regularly in New York for the Phoenix Concerts and PRISM Projects.

His credits in musical direction range from Sweeney Todd to La Clemenza di Tito, including the staged premiere of Daron Hagen’s Vera of Las Vegas. He has been assistant conductor for productions of Don Carlo, Poliuto, La Forza del Destino and Aida for Chicago’s DaCorneto Opera, and assisted Julius Rudel on Opera Theater of Pittsburgh’s 2008 production of Lost in the Stars.

As a pianist, he performs both standard and contemporary chamber music, and is a member of IonSound, the Music On the Edge Chamber Orchestra, and New York’s Phoenix Players. He has premiered more than 150 works by living composers.

John Dooley - Bass

As an outstanding crossover singer whose musical theater talents equal his flair for opera, John Dooley’s singing was recently hailed by the Wall Street Journal as a warm, supple baritone.

On the operatic side of his career, Mr. Dooley has been heard as Lysander in Michael Ching’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ashmodeus in Jonathan Dove’s Tobias and the Angel, Frontino in Rossini’s L’Equivoco stravagante, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte, Leporello in Don Giovanni, Malatesta in Don Pasquale, both Figaro and Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Marco in Gianni Schicchi and Buoso’s Ghost, Marquis d’Obigny in La traviata, Schaunard in La bohème, Yamadori in Madama Butterfly, Falke in Die Fledermaus, Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas, Hermann in Les contes d’Hoffmann and Melchior Amahl and the Night Visitors. He has sung with Opera on the James, Central City Opera, Portland Opera, Tulsa Opera, Amarillo Opera, Opera Delaware, Opera Memphis, Opera Saratoga, Opera Vivente and Connecticut Early Music Festival.

A member of Actors’ Equity, Mr. Dooley has appeared in The Best of Sondheim with Utah Symphony opposite Faith Prince, Alice Ripley and Gregg Edelman. He has sung the roles of Bruce Granit in On the Twentieth Century, Riff in West Side Story, Rolf Gruber and Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, Olin Britt in The Music Man, Lieutenant Wright in the The Secret Garden, Escamillo in Don Jose’s Carmen and Marcel in The Boyfriend. He has worked with Theater at Monmouth, Playhouse on the Square, Tulsa Opera, Ash Lawn Opera Festival, So. of Broadway Theatre Company and Vienna Choral Society.